Bid for items owned by Peter Naulls

We love Peter Naulls to bits, and we're probably being foolish telling you this as we want to own as much Naulls memorabilia as possible ourselves. Nevertheless, in the interests of society as a hole, we have decided to let you in on a secret. You can buy objects belonging to Mr Naulls on eBay. I reckon that no real Naulls fan should be without a Naulls-owned Compliments Cermaic Hair Straightener, which is one of the items for sale.

Vigay relaunches RISCOS.org

It’s nice to see the Peter Naulls Appreciation Society causing further improvements in the Acorn scene. Following our launch, Peter Vigay has decided to relaunch his riscos.org site in a blog format. Marvellous. Keep up the good work!

Gutted

No soon has VirtualAcorn announced its new Mac version of VirtualAcorn, we find out that Apple is changing processors. One Peter Naulls fan wrote to us saying that he suspects VirtualAcorn for Mac will require a hell of a lot of work to get it working on Intel processors, and doubts it will be just a case of recompiling in XCode 2.1.

We sypathise with top geezer Aaron Timbrell. But we suggest that much of his Acorn software ought to be ported over to the Mac - instead of expecting us to emulate it. I have fond memories of the powerhouse that iSV Products was in the mid 90s. God that was a prolific company. Come on, geezer, set up OEM Products for the Mac.

Saturday, June 11, 2005

Make your pledge today!

As you may be aware, the hero of this site is working on porting Firefox to RISC OS. He's asking for pledges to support the work. The Firefox Pledge-O-Meter is making progress, but there is still some way to go if it is to reach 100% by the Big Ben Show next weekend - which is when he'd like to release the product. Peter tells us that the person who causes it reach 100% will receive a piece of Firefox memorobilia.

Go on, send him £100 and give his work a real boost.

Also our hero says: "I'm also still looking for someone to take on project adminstration. Without this, it is increasingly hard for me to do practical work on the project."

Friday, June 10, 2005

Cybervillage of the Damned takes action

It seems our little write-up of about the Acorn Cybervillage has caused some action with no less than four new news stories on that site. Prior to that there hadn't been a post since 24th May. This is yet more proof that we are the most influential RISC OS website in the world!

Virtual Acorn's geezer drops us a note

Ace Acorn geezer Aaron Timbrell e-mailed to say in response to our recent comments: "The Mac version [of Virtual Acorn] isn't ready yet - hence the lack of details on the website. Oh, and I do have a smart phone, but I'm too stupid to know how to use it."

Peter, peter, you coder so dapper

This poem from Michael Dales is probably the best entry so far to our poetry competition, but the competition is still open. We're told is to be read in a kind of "it was the night before chirstmas" style:

Peter, peter, you coder so dapper,You wear a tie, yet no hat on your napper,Sources that are open to RISC OS you port,Whilst RISC OS users pledge financial support.

With tgif, xpilot, and apps galore,You encourages others to port some more,Providing them with tools and lots of advice,Perhaps they'll code up something nice.

But away to America to seek pastures new,ARM Linux work is now the life for you,We wish you and your family all the best,As you lead the good life way out west.

So farewell dear Chocky we wish you all,The best of luck, from one and all!

Thursday, June 09, 2005

Try the RISC OS Atkins Diet

Then try the Atkins diet! The Atkins Diet involves avoiding certain things. Like XScale processors and USB. Just try an Atkins diet and you won't worry about consuming computer time. You'll be doing more fun things like watching the TV or going to the pub. It's well known that too much sitting in front of a computer can make you fat, but with the Atkins diet, RISC OS will no longer captivate you.

We put it to Mr Atkins that his diet was crap. He refused to discuss it with us, simply saying: "I've just had it with the press."

Firefox funding half-way

Cybervillage of the damned

Back in the mid-90s, I was an avid fan of the Acorn Cybervillage. God my phone bill was huge back then, thanks to my really speedy 33.6kbps modem. But something spooky has happened. It seems that the Acorn Cybervillage has become the Cybervillage of the Damned. The village's children have telepathic powers, with glowing eyes and unpredictable posting frequency.

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Poetry competition update

Thanks to all of you who have entered into our Peter Naulls poetry competition. We've had a dozen entires so far, but some of them are just, well, wrong. A couple of them are too serious, but it just goes to show that there's some serious admirers out there. Keep 'em coming.

Update 2: A leading RISC OS journalist e-mailed to say: "Martin wasn't trying to get his photo taken with Peter, they were both just trying to get on iconbar.com (and seeming very happy about it!)." Well of course Martin was posing for an Iconbar photographer. There's a huge deal of prestige in being in a public photo with our hero, young Mr Naulls.

Computer company abducted by aliens

After many years of research, we can exclusively report that a growing number of leading Cambridge figures are of the view that Acorn staff were routinely abducted by aliens, and that Cambridgeshire farms nearby routinely experienced crop circles. The company was closed on Earth, replaced by a similar firm in a galaxy far, far away.

Peter Bondar was the most-commonly abducted staffer. Here is a picture of the man after facial experiments had occured.

While most of the abductees were allowed to keep their memories intact - bar the abductions - it appears the Bondar experienced a brain wipe at the time to the aliens kicked him out of Acorn. That's why he suddenly switched to using Windows. But the alien scientists were ineffective at their brain wipe, and Bondar's residual memories led him get involved in an attempt to take over computer manufacturing from Acorn.

One ex-Acorn staffer told the Peter Naulls Appreciation Society: "I began to worry about Acorn after walking into the CEO's office and finding that Stan Boland was not in human form." She supplied us with a photo of one of the last Acorn board meetings.

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

The most influential RISC OS website

Having pursuaded Peter Naulls to carry on porting Firefox and reinstate his web pages, we feel justified in saying that we are the most influential RISC OS website in the world. With that in mind, we are now lobbying the Acorn press to ensure that they give lots of space to Firefox and feature Peter Naulls extensively within their pages.

(Picture: Qercus's editor. I have visions of this guy being incredibly fun when very, very drunk. Do let us know if there is any gossip from RISC OS shows.)

Virtual Acorn for Mac?

Top RISC OS geezer Aaron Timbrell (pictured left) apparently has a new Mac version of Virtual Acorn. We're interested in a copy for the Appreciation Society office, but he doesn't appear to have found enough time to put the details of the product on his website. We recommend he gets a smartphone: ideal for updating HTML in the pub.

Spice Girl *has* used RISC OS

It has been confirmed to us by a leading RISC OS source that at least one of the Spice Girls has indeed used a RISC OS computer. It is understood that it was not her own computer but she was given a go on the machine by someone else. Could that someone else have been the one-and-only Peter Naulls? Answers on a postcard...

Peter's horoscope

Thanks to the dozens of you who have been e-mailing in with details about Peter. It turns out that Peter is a Pisces. His horoscope for the week is as follows:

"With Venus going out of alignment with Uranus, there will be change in your life. Being sensitive, you will find that others sometimes get you down. But your selfless, unworldly and imaginative desires will ultimately win through. Your escapist tendencies will lead you to pastures new. Great financial success is on the horizon if only you stay true also to the great project in your life."

Peter says: "Show me the money"

A recent poll for the Peter Naulls Appreciation Society shows that 89% of RISC OS users "strongly like" Peter Naulls. A further 10.6% say they "like" the man. So in the light of this poll, it is perhaps apt for Peter to do a "Show me the money" pledge-drive. He wants your cash so he can pay for all the development time he's put into Firefox for RISC OS. Do you remember sending off your hundred quid for the ANT Internet Suite back in 1995/6? Well, in that case, send some cash to Peter Naulls for his work on what is a far better browser.

Other RISC OS users we appreciate

In addition to worshipping Peter Naulls, we also like other key RISC OS characters. Our favourite other than Peter is THE Paul Vigay. Paul is a one man evangelist for RISC OS and is into crop circles as well.

Peter to move to California

Drobe reports: "Peter will be heading for the soaring temperatures of California, USA, ditching overcast Cambridgeshire, in pursuit of "a real job" in time for August this year. Whilst waiting for his immigration Visa to arrive, Peter told UPP subscribers over the weekend that his move away from Europe is in order "to pursue a real job, meet family requirements, and enjoy significantly larger income than I could ever hope to get out of doing RISC OS work, as well as attempt to recoup the significant costs I've incurred by pursuing so much RISC OS work in the past few years.""